My friend Nancy was helping me out with some stuff about a month ago, and I gave her her choice of amaryllises in bud to take home. Last night, after our knitting group meeting, she gave me the bulb back and then emailed me a picture of her Dancing Queen while it had been in bloom at her house so I could put it on my blog. Cool. Thank you!

I have to tell you about her turtle, since I have a thing about turtles anyway. She opened her door one day years ago to find a small box turtle on her doorstep, unable to reach the doorbell but trying to knock to come on in. Well, hello, who are you?

See that area behind the amaryllis? The rock, the cactus? Her house has an enclosed atrium: you walk in the front door to a glass-covered outdoorsyish spot, complete with bubbling fountain and plants growing in the ground, a greenhouse, basically. Continue down the flagstone pathway, enter the sliding glass doors looking onto the atrium, and you’re the rest of the way inside.

I grew up next to a ten-mile long watershed preserve in Maryland, where people didn’t fence off their yards and the wildlife was pretty prevalent in the heavy woods surrounding the houses. We had box turtles in the backyard munching on the jack-in-the-pulpits and mayapples in the understory. But here in California, the housing is far more dense and the creeks were turned into cemented-in troughs decades ago to keep them in their places. (After 21 years here, I still wince. It’s just so wrong.)

Somehow Nancy’s turtle had survived all that development. She and her husband took care of it for decades, and when it finally passed on, the vet had guessed its age to be 130. It had seen Mark Twain’s day.

And it had beaten every odd thrown against it, and at about 100, had found the place where it was welcome and warm and comfortable and fed and had lived surprisingly long and quite happily ever after.

Go Nancy.

(Update a little later: Nancy just called. We talked about her turtle, and she said its carapace now belongs to a turtle group that takes it to schools to teach with. So its shell lives on doing good.)

Totally outshone by those flowers below taking up all the light in the room. Which amuses me to no end.

I really do need to get my pattern photos up on Ravelry. There–if I say it out loud, it’ll happen. Harness that peer pressure and put it to work, right? This is the Clover Chain shawl (rather scrunched up at the bottom here) in the book, done in baby alpaca fingering weight, but something like Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight and going down three needle sizes would work too, just, you’d get a much smaller-around V-necked shawl that would be good for tying in front rather than a throw-over-your-shoulder wrap.

And, well, yes, for those who have asked–what name could I possibly have used there but spindyeknit. And I’m sitting here lecturing my fingers not to add a .com after that word.

A week ago, old friend and occasional commenter Monica and her husband Klaus were in town, visiting from Sweden, and our friend Miriam threw a dinner and had a bunch of us over to see them. They were newlyweds and Klaus was working on his PhD at Stanford back in the day; it’s been 15 years. (Monica: I still haven’t gotten the photo off Richard’s camera.)

Klaus is currently the Mormon bishop in their town. Bishops have two counsellors, all of them serving as volunteers, and one of Klaus’s occasionally flies here on business. Three weeks ago, that fellow was here, and I had brought a lace scarf to church that I’d knitted on the chance that one of the new folks might be wearing red that day.

But I saw him first, and jumped at the chance to have him take a part of Monica and Klaus’s old ward home with him. I offered it for his wife and asked him to tell them all hi for me. He accepted it graciously, but a bit wonderingly, clearly not getting why I would do such a thing or why, quite honestly, judging by the look on his face, it should matter. Knitting? It was baby alpaca, and clearly that meant something to me because I mentioned it twice, but okay, whatever. He assured me that she liked warm things around her neck. Sure, he’d give it to her for me (and you could just hear him thinking, and what was your name again? Familiar face, yes, but?…)

So. Monica and Klaus were here after that, and we had a great time catching up. She is the friend who, back in the day, had knitted all her life but had never learned how to knit cablework. So I showed her. She was the most unruffleable person I knew, the most perfectly calm soul, the kind of person I wanted to be when I grew up, so I was quite surprised at her reaction: an outraged, “That’s IT?!” That was all there was to it? She had let herself be afraid of trying it because it looked too complex, and it was that simple?! We had a good laugh over that.

Yesterday, Klaus’s counselor we’d seen three weeks ago was back already, looking fairly jet-lagged and ready to fall asleep in a moment. But when he saw me walking into church, a few minutes early, his face totally lit up and he stood up to come say hi. His wife had loved that scarf. Yes, the color was just right. Thank you *so* much.

It was worth every stitch to watch him go from clearly feeling absolutely beat just then to absolutely delighted. Gratitude is an energizing thing, and in that moment it went both ways.

So when that other husband, the one I blogged about yesterday, later refused to be impressed (be still, my beating ego), I already had a bef0re-and-after to chuckle over going on in the back of my head. They come around. Give them time.

(p.s. Yes, I staked that Picotee amaryllis immediately after those snapshots.)

The owner of the lion called Amy a week later: their cat was still sluggish, (just like it had been before they’d brought it in), and they were complaining about its maybe having been given too much anesthesia.  Amy assured them that there was no way it would still be affecting the lion by now, that it simply was quite ill (which it was).

And then, after she hung up, went, What did they THINK I was going to do!!!

(Side note: Ostrich Plumes pattern on the afghan, kid mohair and baby alpaca doubled together.)

When our oldest was three, we found our house there in New Hampshire was mosquito central in the spring, there being a wetlands area nearby. We got to watch mallard ducks arrive in our back yard for awhile, eating the larvae, just, I guess there needed to have been a few more quacking back there.

She went out to play on the swingset one late afternoon and came back inside after fifteen minutes. One look at her and I was horrified. I stopped and counted, trying to wrap my mind around it: 64 little red welts growing–it was that fast. “Oh, my poor Jennie!” I exclaimed, very sorry I hadn’t bought bug repellent before I’d let her go out there, especially at that time of day.

She looked at me, and with the wisdom of a three-year-old that spoke of so many times to come when she would be able to shrug off bad things as something she could handle on her own just fine, more worried about upsetting me than about herself, offered thoughtfully, consolingly, “I’d be more poor if I got eaten by tigers.” I laughed and cried just a tear and scooped her into my arms to try to make it all better, knowing that only time would make the bites go away but a mom’s hugs helped both of us. Just amazed. Out of the mouths of babes.

And then our kids grow up…

Nina from my book and her daughter Amy just stopped by for a visit while Amy’s in town. Amy’s a young veterinarian, and her new home and job happen to be near a wildlife rescue center.

Which is why she was just telling my husband and me about one of her most memorable recent patients brought in, carried in in a cage; when I asked, she told me sure, I could blog it.

Cats are one thing. Um. The sick patient that came in their door was a three hundred pound lion. Well, let’s see, so many cc per pound of weight… An assistant drew up and delivered the dose after Amy calculated it, to knock it out so Amy could intubate it.

Sweet dreams. Okay, ready. So there’s Amy, at the lion’s head just about to go put the tube down its throat…

…and the lion roared. I guess it didn’t like that mosquito bite in its backside.

Note that there were no windows in that surgery room and no escape except, as she put it, “through the lion.”

Obviously, they got a second dose into that thing fast and everybody came out okay. But it makes a great story.

Besides, you’re not supposed to eat when you’re going to be under anesthesia.

Maybe if he googles, somehow he’ll find this and I’ll get to reconnect after all these years and say hi. But I’m not going to breach his privacy by adding his last name in.

I was following some of Stephanie’s links, and came across this one. Scroll to the gorgeous steeked Norwegian sweater that the blogger had bought at a thrift store, even if it didn’t fit her–it was such a notable work of art, and for two dollars! My first thought was, your little girl will grow into that before you know it. It’s a cliche, but they do, little ones grow so fast.

My second, was, Jonathan.

I have no idea where in the world he is now. Jonathan was a lifeguard at the pool at the Betty Wright Swim Center, a place where you could only get in to swim with a doctor’s prescription to do so. I mentioned (shameless plug alert) in my book my going to swim therapy–Betty Wright is where I went for four years. Since everyone there had something going on that had brought them there, the place offered a deep sense of community; if a regular didn’t show for awhile, people started asking each other and the more outgoing ones would phone, just to make sure you were all right.

Most of the clientele was elderly. I was one of the babies of the group and my kids were little back then. My lupus diagnosis was quite new.

Then one day I happened across a garage sale at a church in our neighborhood and found a handknit Aran sweater, in the long lean style of the late 70’s at the time when the oversized 80’s had not finished fading into the future: knitted for someone tall and thin, well made, densely handknit on small needles proportionate to the yarn, quite warm. I had a 6’8″ husband and a 6’7″ uncle, so our kids were going to get height from both sides and our older boy looked like he had definitely gotten the tall genes. I looked at it and thought, I could put it away for ten years and wait, sure. At twenty-five cents? Goodness, if it only fit for ten minutes during his future growth spurt I’d still come out ahead!

So I bought it and carefully put it well away. There was certainly no hurry.

We were remodeling our old fixer-upper soon after. We packed up and moved into one end of the house while tearing apart the other, then six months later reversed the process. Everything not in immediate use was inside cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling. I’d written the contents on the outsides, but it seemed like every time someone dug through to retrieve something, what those boxes said and what they had no longer really matched, especially after a year.

One of the first complications I had had with my lupus had been the equivalent of a stroke that to this day messes with my visual memory, which before had been superb. It’s nowhere near as bad now as it was in those early days, when, on days when I was really tired, I wasn’t sure I could pick my own husband’s face out of a crowd if he held still–but give me the cues of his mannerisms, though, make him start talking and moving, and I had it. I remember my rheumatologist’s incredulous, “You recognize me by how I *WALK*?” I shrugged, Doesn’t everyone? When you don’t have the cue of the person’s voice? Worked for me.

So. I had one day where I was swimming laps, minding my own business, having a quiet morning and a little time off from the kids while my friend Lisa babysat them, when the thought came to me that I ought to offer Jonathan, one of the lifeguards, that sweater.

I resisted just a moment’s worth of strokes through the warm water, the thought passing through my mind in response, as if I were having a conversation, that, well, hey, I had been going to save that for my older son. The tall one. But the thought persisted, and it felt a happy one; okay, then. I’ll do it. I’ll offer him.

As soon as I decided to, I felt instantly quite cheerful and–this was so striking to me in the context of the recent and brutal-to-me agony over my new memory deficits–I knew EXACTLY where that sweater was! The box, the location, the sweater inside it. It had been moved, too, it turned out, from where I would have expected. But somehow I could picture it and I absolutely knew that my inner image was right. I couldn’t wait to see to confirm that. I mean, I just absolutely knew it was so, but, how, how could, and how did it get there… I hurried out of the pool, thanked Lisa, and ran to the spot.

Exactly there. Exactly inside. There it was. I wanted to jump up and down and shout for joy. Only thing is, I didn’t….really…know..why.

So now I was excited, but then how do you tamp that back down and go make the whole thing a reality without making a fool of yourself? And why should I? That, I had no idea of. Huh. Well, whatever, here goes.

I went back to Betty Wright. Jonathan was still there. I told him I had a beautiful handknit cream wool sweater, my only regret being that I hadn’t knitted it myself–I would have liked to have. But I thought it might fit him. Would he like me to get it? Would he like me to see if it might?

He was surprised, and touched, and said, warmly, Sure!

And so I gave it to him. I watched him handle it reverently, stroke its cabled textures, admire it, and put it on. And that moment he and I saw! If only its knitter could somehow have seen him. If only the knitter could somehow have known. It fit his long, tall, thin young frame absolutely perfectly. Not too tight on him at all. Not too long, not too short, not in the body, not in the sleeves, he totally Goldilocksed it. It was just right. And he loved that it had been created by some individual somewhere out of love for someone, and that he was somehow now the inheritor of that.

It wasn’t till awhile later, till he’d gotten over the surprise of it all, that he told me. Right before he left the second time.

His father had been a Jew from Iraq who had ended up in a WWII Japanese concentration camp (yes, Japanese). His mother had been English. He, with his lovely British accent, had actually been born and raised in Singapore, where, his parents not being native, he was not accepted as such either. He had no country to claim as home, no place to belong.

His father had come away from his wartime experiences angry at the very idea that there could be a God and if so that He’d let such things happen in His creation–no, there couldn’t be. And a loving God? With what he’d seen? Gimme a break.

Meantime, Jonathan got accepted into Stanford, got the lifeguard job as an internship part of his training, and hoped to settle in the US for good. This is a country that he could happily call home, if he worked hard enough.

And yet. He got a phone call one day from a friend in France, calling to say goodbye: calling to say he was about to kill himself. Jonathan desperately pleaded with him, no, no, wait till I can get there, I’ll be on the next plane, please let me see you, you’re my friend, I love you, you mean too much to me, please! He called whatever version of 911 there is in Paris, he called social services, he called everything he could think of, and then made good on his promise, spending every dime he had on the very next plane.

It worked. He saved his friend’s life. Last I heard, the fellow was hospitalized but at least had come around to see that he was glad for the intervention. Severe depression takes time and work at recovering from, but through Jonathan, he finally wanted to want to get better.

Jonathan returned here after a week and came back to his lifeguarding at the pool. The weather was getting cold. He told me later that he had looked in his closet wishing he owned a jacket, something warm, anything, and he simply didn’t own one. He had no money now to his name and no hope of doing a thing about it in his present circumstances. And he wondered, as he had many times in his life, if his father were right. He wondered if there was a God.

The very next morning, I was swimming those laps and suddenly picturing that box. That was the day I presented him with a custom-handknitted (even if the knitter never knew) warm, thick sweater that for this climate would work well for a jacket. From God’s hands to the knitter’s to his.

Jonathan’s abrupt departure caused a rift with one of his co-workers, and the upshot is that he lost his job. He lost his chance to stay at Stanford. He was forced to go back to Singapore, and where after that, I never knew. He lost everything he had been working towards, but he’d saved his friend’s life by giving his all for him.

I have prayed ever since that he would look at that sweater, wool from the hands of someone neither he nor I knew, each of us playing our part, and know who, at long last, he really was.

Rachel’s washable wool baby blanket.

And a few celebrants cheering it on.

(This swatch’s worth isn’t a great shot of the colors, it’s still a bit damp in the blocking so I can’t move it near a window yet. It’s more a soft peachy-pink overall in real life.)

In the end, my pregnancy of this project only took two months; no back aches, no morning sickness, I’ve got nothing to complain about. I bought the superwash wool for it from my friend Karen the day she was closing up her shop for good, and I told her who I was going to knit it up for and why. She liked that. It gave her something to be happy about that day.

Which meant I felt obliged to make good on my word to her so that I could show it off to her and she could feel she’d played a part in the joy of the sharing. Which she had. I am debating blogging the little aside that the yarn was terribly splitty and thin and needed tiny needles and took forever and it was like knitting the world’s most monstrous sock for the tightness and it drove me nuts and hurt my hands. This baby was kicking me. Note that I did buy a competing superwash merino from Purlescence after I’d started and gave myself an out–I’m no angel. Heh.

And yet… Every time I stopped and really looked at the fabric that was coming out of my needles, I pictured it wrapped around Kathy’s baby. The Kathy in my book, my friend I grew up with, who’d just had her second baby. She told me that after the death of her father when we were in seventh grade, it had taken her awhile to learn to finally trust life enough to marry, to start a family. She was so glad she finally did. They had a little boy. And now they have a daughter, born near the time of my 49th birthday.

They named her Rachel.  After the grandfather she will only know through those who loved him, Ray. But that love is a powerful thing, and it does carry down through the ages, whether the person is present or no.

I have a lovely bit of wool here in its finished form, worth every minute of my time it took for it to come to be, to say so.

(Okay, this was actually funny, I had a mysterious ghost of a post when I hit publish–where did most of the text and one picture go? Cut and paste, let’s try again. Hey, up there, I hear you guffawing. This is what I wrote:)

Hey, Albert up there (don’t we all do that?) if you’re looking: it’s done. Not finished–it needs water, it needs the blocking wires to stretch it and show more clearly the pattern that is already there, in each stitch following along its proper path as it connects to the next one over, stitch by stitch, row by row–but the knitting part. It’s done now.

Thanks, friend.

I’m grieving, and today’s entry is sad. There’s a hero; there are villains. Skip it and wait till tomorrow’s, whatever it may be, if you’d rather; I certainly understand.

I wrote recently about my friends whom I brought dinner to when the wife had pneumonia, back when our kids were in elementary school together. Some may have noticed I put their first names in, when I did not do so for the other person in that story. It’s because Albert would have loved it, because that part of the story was complimentary to me. Writing about dinner is one thing; writing about the time in their lives when a caravan of satellite-uplink news vans was stalking their front door is another, and I have edited his wife’s name out now.

Albert would have been abashed, though, if he’d heard me mentioning the day they were late coming to our then-kindergartner sons’ school parade way back in the day, protesting that anyone else would have done the same thing: they were late. And when their car came to the tracks for the commuter trains that run up and down the Peninsula, the lights flashed and the warning gates came down, so they were going to be even more late. Well, crum.

There was a young mom with a toddler in a stroller on the sidewalk next to their car. Suddenly, she decided she was in too much of a hurry to wait, she could beat that train, just go. Albert and his wife stared in disbelief a moment, and then horror–the wheels of the stroller had gotten caught in the tracks. Stuck. The mom looked up at that oncoming train and froze, knowing full well in that instant what she had just done.

Albert instantly leaped out of their car, exclaiming, “She’s not going to make it!” while his wife sat frozen herself, sure she was about to witness the terrible death of all three. But Albert was an athlete, and he grabbed that stroller upwards and out while shouting at the mom, “I’ve got the baby!,” pulling her as well as her strapped-in child away just in the seconds the train was bearing down on them. It was right there. They were right there. Somehow they survived.

And they went on to the kindergarten parade. And the toddler, whoever it was, lived to see kindergarten himself. (Herself? Don’t know.) Plain old ordinary life. He would be in high school now. I wonder if his mother ever told him who saved him, and whether she saved the newspaper clippings of that day. I so much hope so. We all need true heroes, growing up.

When I was so ill at Stanford Hospital five years ago, I found comfort in praying for my friends, trying to keep my focus from being entirely centered around myself, that being one of the occupational hazards of being sick. I specifically prayed for Albert and his wife and their kids. It felt important that they be on my list. Enough so that I remember that, and I not long after that was marvelling over it with his wife.

What I’d had no idea of, was, Albert was in the emergency room at Stanford Hospital being treated one of those first few nights that I was doing that, probably at close to the same time. Because: that night, someone had reported a suspicious-looking man. The rookie cops had driven down the street, found a man sitting in his car, and decided he was clearly trouble. Because he was black. He was also 59. They later told the judge their behavior was justified because, when they’d ordered him to get out of his car–without cause or warrant or legality for the search they had decided to do–he’d opened it “too hard.” They beat him so viciously that, when he was finally able to tell me about the experience a year later, choking and tearing up at the memory, “I was sure I was never going to see my kids again.” His teenage kids needed him, and he hung onto that thought as the blows rained down, as they broke bone permanently out of his knee.

One of the by-then-grown kids he had once been a volunteer coach to happened by and saw it happen and recognized his beloved coach and testified against the cops. One Palo Alto Weekly newspaper account noted that half the children in the southern half of this city had had Albert coach them as a volunteer one time or another. He was good at that, he was a good man, he was actively committed to this community, and he cared deeply about all his kids.

Those two cops tried hard to find something they could charge him with but found themselves on criminal trial instead. Good. Albert worked hard at forgiving them completely and without reservation, actively praying for them, not half-heartedly; I told him I wanted to be him when I grew up. I think he did a far better job of that forgiving than I did. Me, I kept hoping those two cops would at least gain the basic human decency to apologize for what they did to my friend.

Last summer, Albert was playing basketball with his buddies, suddenly keeled over of a heart attack, and he was gone.

I still can’t fathom it. I still keep thinking I’ll run into him at the grocery store sometime. Or that I ought to stop by the high school.

He’d run our high school’s academic help center. I’d gone in there from time to quite infrequent time just to say hi for old times’ sake, and he loved the visits but the kids always came first. If any of them had a question or needed help, I had to wait. As well it should be. I remember his daughter coming in one day and watching his face light up when he saw her.

They are planting an oak tree in his name at that school today where my kids used to eat lunch outside. I want with all my soul to be there with them. I want to hug the family. I want the reunion and the tears that I know will be going on amongst so many old friends so dear and far too far with our kids now grown, to have the solace of company in my own grieving as well as to give solace. But you can’t rightly go to part of a memorial service, it’s got to be an all-or-nothing. I thought of all the things I can do, all the layers and sunscreens and shades and and and to protect me from the effects of the UV rays on my flaming autoimmunity, and I know from many years and many experiences with this lupus that I–just. can’t. go. Can’t be there for them. Not in person. It could be suicidal. It might very well cost me my eyesight. It could so easily put me back in the hospital with the Crohn’s when I’m on a last-ditch med already for it. It’s not *if* going would make me sick, it’s whether I would survive how sick it would make me.

His wife got a soft kid mohair lace shawl from me, large and cuddly and intricate and warm, probably half a dozen years ago. I will wrap thoughts of my dear friend Albert, of his wife, and of each of his children around me, and I will knit in his honor during the time of the ceremony, knitting on behalf of a young couple he would have loved had he gotten a chance to meet them. Two young people who have been through a hard time themselves and have been coming out the other side now to light and love. I will knit to continue the support that shows them they are deeply cared about. Albert would have loved that. Maybe I should bring them a chocolate cake, too. With sprinkles.

And I had not realized till I typed that last paragraph, I am knitting it in yarn that I dyed the same color as what I knitted for Albert’s wife. Somehow, that fits. And I did not realize till after I’d saved this draft to come back to later, that I had, for that matter, started the new shawl for that young wife in the same pattern as CH’s. Wow. We ARE all in this life thing together.

Goodbye, Albert Hopkins. You were a true friend always. This planet needs far more men like you, not one fewer.

First, a quick bit re knitting: finished last night, church scarf of the week. One strand Geisha kid mohair/silk/nylon by Blue Moon Fiber Arts, and one strand of laceweight Zephyr silk/merino in I think Ruby, stretching some leftovers by knitting them together and using a larger needle.

Now, on to the rest:

Travel. See the world through the eyes of others.

I’m writing this down for the sake of the old friend from very way back that I talked to yesterday; you know who you are.

My cousin’s daughter was in India on a trip, and along the way had a host family that was naturally curious about this young foreign woman and asked her personal questions.

And then couldn’t bend their minds around the concept of being single: “You’re *twenty-six*? Don’t your parents know any nice young men?!”

She was, I’m sure, caught off guard, and tried to explain the concept of marrying for love: you know, you meet someone, you find you like them, they like you back, you find you have things in common, you come to like each other in that way… She described herself as blathering on, I’m sure feeling very awkward in the face of their stunned disbelief.

“Don’t you have friends?”

“Sure I have friends! I like lots of people! It’s just…”

They threw a feast, invited their friends, and the host introduced her to all: “I now understand why it is so hard to get married in America. This is F. In America, she likes lots of people, but nobody likes her back.”

To L. May I say in the greatest of innocence, lots of people like you back. Always did, friend.

I walked into Purlescence last night and three of the regulars instantly stared at my head. Meg exclaimed in mock indignation, “Where’s the blue?”

I laughed a good one at that, telling her, “I thought of you when I wrote that!” Meg has beautiful blacklight-fading-to-royal blue highlights in her black hair. I’ve often told her how great I think it looks on her and have mused out loud about playing copycat or perhaps multicolor a la Lucy Neatby, but I rather like the combination of youngish face and graying hair with a good bit of length to it and don’t forget the Birkenstocks to complete the image, myself.

Speaking of which. I walked out of Trader Joe’s the other day and was accosted by a woman about ten years older than me, quite well dressed, well coiffed, calling after me from behind with a combination of disbelief and a tone of being not sure whether she should be outraged, “Hey! Lady! Your socks don’t match!”

“Yes!” I answered her. “They came this way. Aren’t these cool?” (I am SO my modern art-dealer father’s daughter.)

That stumped her a second, and then she looked like she wanted in on this new fad too. “Where’d you get them?”

“At a knitter’s convention in Baltimore.” One of the Stitches vendors (I think this was the one) was selling them.

That was one oddball thing past the point the woman could deal with, and she waved me away in disgust, exclaiming “Pffffft!” at me. Heh. My head might not be Neatby’d, but my feet like the idea.

Oh. Before I sign off. RobinH asked about the knitting. I put down the Camelspin project to do a church scarf. (Monica, it went back to Sweden with your friend, if it’s not the right color red for his wife, rat on them for me, would you? It’s a bit towards the rust side, the baby alpaca was probably originally light brown on the hoof. Thanks.) And I did a Concert scarf pattern for someone who doesn’t know it’s coming, so, shhh, pictures later, and…

I didn’t decide the edging on the Camelspin. So there it has sat for a week. I finally admitted to myself why it wasn’t done, and when Sandi and Kay asked me how I was last night, I told them I was a bad girl.

They looked at me like, right. You. Uh huh. Explain.

I grinned, and told them that I was knitting it up with the idea of the (still-not-entirely-sure-I’ll-do-this) next (knitting) book, but I kept feeling like the right person for it was about to show up and I was too cheap to spring for two skeins of that expensive yarn twice for the book–so I’d dyed up that merino/silk that afternoon to try to match it to try to head off whoever that was going to turn out to be.

Sandi guffawed, exclaiming, “I’ve done that!”

“You HAVE?!”

Oh good, I’m in the best of company. As for the berry Camelspin, it’ll go where it’s supposed to go. Having faced up to it by my friends having asked just the right question I needed to be asked when I needed to be asked it, if I’m meant to get more Camelspin, it’ll happen.

That merino/silk, on the other hand, while it’s lovely and soft, just isn’t quite the same. The recipient will get the one she’s supposed to.

I talked to Nicholas’s mom at church. She filled me in on the rest of the story.

Nicholas got the rod taken out of his leg in January, got a follow-up later, and got the okay to go–okay, picture me starting to look wide-eyed at her, thinking, you didn’t! You are FAR braver souls than I!–skiing again.

I am *so* not a skiier. Never mind. On with the story. Jim emailed me so that I could have it in his words.

“I had contacted BT, the ski patrol/medic who had helped Nicholas at the scene of the accident. He was working that day, and we met him at the lift after we got our ski equipment. Now, I don’t imagine too many people come back and look up ski patrolmen. And yes, he was just doing his job, but we choose to believe that it was not entirely coincidental that he was very close by when Nicholas fell and was at his side almost immediately. He skied with us for about an hour, and it was fun getting to know him. He’s not your average ski bum: he has just been accepted to Stanford Medical School (among others)!

We went to tower #10 and took some pictures of where Nicholas had fallen. We have always said that it was a 30′ drop, but it’s actually a little higher than that, maybe 35′? Yikes! We loved riding the high-speed chairlift. BT showed us a few runs we hadn’t tried before, and then had to take off for work at a Reno hospital. We hope he ends up at Stanford.”

Boy, I do too. If ever/the next time that/ I’m a patient at Stanford, I’m hoping he’ll be one of the students that stops by so I can thank him too.

Imagine seeing that eight-year-old child falling off that ski lift. Imagine tending to him, knowing his parents are stuck on that lift and there’s nothing they can do but give their child up into your hands for the moment. Imagine seeing them flying down the slopes as soon as they can, with the boy’s little brother. Imagine radioing for an airlift helicopter, seeing Nicholas lying there, badly hurt but conscious and able to answer you.

Imagine, a year later, those parents bringing their son, alive, whole, with no brain damage, back, a three hour drive each way, to show you the outcome of the care you gave that day.

Imagine having that to look back on, later in your life, should burnout ever threaten your outlook on your giving care to others.

I looked at Nicholas, who was running around like any normal kid last Sunday, and thought in gratitude to a year ago when he’d fallen 30 feet off the ski lift just to the side of where the picture in that link was taken by his dad. Look at that shot of light there. That’s how it felt, seeing the grin on his face. You would never know now what he’d gone through, what his family had gone through.

I never did get to find out who this knitter was to thank him or her, though I did hear from a member of a knitting guild in Reno who was asking around, but whoever you are out there, thank you for giving a huge amount of comfort to everybody here; you made a tremendous difference when it was urgently needed, to Nicholas wrapped up in his afghan every day and to every person who saw him with it. And you will likely never know.

Time to get ready for church.  Happy Easter!

Andy’s package came slowly back to me. Standing in line at the post office yesterday, the next clerk up was the one who’d helped me send his off the first time.

“You paid Express on this one! They didn’t forward it?!” She was indignant. She wanted to know, was it the American postal service or the English? The English. Oh well, at least there’s that. Her pride was mollified.

I’d emailed, gotten an answer yesterday and an updated address–oops–and I was trying again. But it was going first class this time, I’d already shot my wad. Andy, it’s coming.

I walked past Steve on my way out, thinking, actually, how glad I was that Andy’s package had given me an excuse to come back and tell Steve–he caught my eye, wanting to know.  Yes. I smiled and told him, “She got it! A day and a half! *Thank* you!”

He gave me a thumbs up and a big grin. He was SO glad.  It totally made his day.

We’re all in this life thing together.